We present a full study of the 3-body problem in gravity in flat (2+1)-dimensional space-time, and in the nonrelativistic limit of small velocities. We provide an explicit form of the ADM Hamiltonian in a regular coordinate system and we set up all t
he ingredients for canonical quantization. We emphasize the role of a U(2) symmetry under which the Hamiltonian is invariant and which should generalize to a U(N-1) symmetry for N bodies. This symmetry seems to stem from a braid group structure in the operations of looping of particles around each other, and guarantees the single-valuedness of the Hamiltonian. Its role for the construction of single-valued energy eigenfunctions is also discussed.
Starting from the semiclassical reduced-action approach to transplanckian scattering by Amati, Veneziano and one of us and from our previous quantum extension of that model, we investigate the S-matrix expression for inelastic processes by extending
to this case the tunneling features previously found in the region of classical gravitational collapse. The resulting model exhibits some non-unitary S-matrix eigenvalues for impact parameters b < b_c, a critical value of the order of the gravitational radius R = 2 G sqrt(s), thus showing that some (inelastic) unitarity defect is generally present, and can be studied quantitatively. We find that S-matrix unitarity for b < b_c is restored only if the rapidity phase-space parameter y is allowed to take values larger than the effective coupling G s / hbar itself. Some features of the resulting unitary model are discussed.
Using the recently introduced ACV reduced-action approach to transplanckian scattering of light particles, we show that the $S$-matrix in the region of classical gravitational collapse is related to a tunneling amplitude in an effective field space.
We understand in this way the role of both real and complex field solutions, the choice of the physical ones, the absorption of the elastic channel associated to inelastic multigraviton production and the occurrence of extra absorption below the critical impact parameter. We are also able to compute a class of quantum corrections to the original semiclassical $S$-matrix that we argue to be qualitatively sensible and which, generally speaking, tend to smooth out the semiclassical results.
We investigate enhanced EW corrections to inclusive hard processes in the TeV energy region with emphasis on the small-x situation, in which the hard scale Q is significantly smaller than the available energy sqrt{s}= Q/x. We first propose and justif
y a general factorization formula in which the (double-log) EW form factor at scale Q^2 is factorized from EW parton distribution functions, which satisfy evolution equations of DGLAP type. We then investigate the small-x behavior of the EW parton distributions including the novel ones for non-vanishing t-channel weak isospin T and we compare it with a BFKL-type approach. In either approach we find that large small-x corrections of order alpha_w log x log Q^2/M^2 (M being the EW symmetry breaking scale) are present only for T=2 and not for T=1. This implies that only transverse WW interactions (coupled to T=2) are affected, while the T=1 components feel just the form factor at scale Q^2.
Extending our previous results on trans-Planckian ($Gs gg hbar$) scattering of light particles in quantum string-gravity we present a calculation of the corresponding S-matrix from the region of large impact parameters ($b gg Gsqrt{s}>lambda_s$) down
to the regime where classical gravitational collapse is expected to occur. By solving the semiclassical equations of a previously introduced effective-action approximation, we find that the perturbative expansion around the leading eikonal result diverges at a critical value $b = b_c = O(Gsqrt{s})$, signalling the onset of a new (black-hole related?) regime. We then discuss the main features of our explicitly unitary S-matrix -- and of the associated effective metric -- down to (and in the vicinity of) $b = b_c$, and present some ideas and results on its extension all the way to the $ b to 0$ region. We find that for $b<b_c$ the physical field solutions are complex-valued and the S-matrix shows additional absorption, related to a new production mechanism. The field solutions themselves are, surprisingly, everywhere regular, suggesting a quantum-tunneling -- rather than a singular-geometry -- situation.
We propose a matrix evolution equation in (x,kt)-space for flavour singlet, unintegrated quark and gluon densities, which generalizes DGLAP and BFKL equations in the relevant limits. The matrix evolution kernel is constructed so as to satisfy renorma
lization group constraints in both the ordered and antiordered regions of exchanged momenta kt, and incorporates the known NLO anomalous dimensions in the MSbar scheme as well as the NLx BFKL kernel. We provide a hard Pomeron exponent and effective eigenvalue functions that include the n_f-dependence, and give also the matrix of resummed DGLAP splitting functions. The results connect smoothly with those of the single-channel approach. The novel P_{qa} splitting functions show resummation effects delayed down to x=0.0001, while both P_{ga} entries show a shallow dip around x=0.001, similarly to the gluon-gluon single-channel results. We remark that the matrix formulation poses further constraints on the consistency of a BFKL framework with the MSbar scheme, which are satisfied at NLO, but marginally violated by small n_f/N_c^2-suppressed terms at NNLO.
